How many websites around the world use WordPress? How much is WordPress’ parent company worth? What is the most popular WordPress theme?

I answer all of these questions and more in this post.

From general statistics, security statistics, and theme/plugin statistics to statistics that apply to only WordPress.org or WordPress.com, I list the top WordPress statistics to know in 2026.

General WordPress Statistics

1. WordPress is used by 42.8% of all websites

According to data collected by W3Techs, 42.8% of all websites in the world use WordPress.

28.7% of websites don’t use a content management system (CMS) at all while 5.1% use Shopify, 4.2% use Wix and 2.4% use Squarespace.

When you only take into account websites who use a CMS, WordPress has a 60% market share.

Source: W3Techs

Related: What is a WordPress Site?

2. Over 900 developers contribute to WordPress

WordPress is an open-source software anyone can contribute to.

In WordPress’ State of the Word post for 2025, the company stated that both WordPress 6.8 and 6.9 had over 900 contributors with 6.9 bringing in 230 first-time contributors.

Source: WordPress

3. Automattic was valued at $7.5 billion in 2021

According to a post published to Matt Mullenweg’s (CEO of Automattic) blog in August 2021, WordPress was valued at $7.5 billion after it completed a round of funding for $288 million in February and bought back shares worth $250 million from current and former employees.

Source: Ma.tt

4. Automattic has raised $985.9 million in funding

According to investment data collected by Crunchbase, Automattic, WordPress’ parent company, has raised $985.9 million in capital.

The most recent round of funding came from a Series E round for $288 million in February 2021. The largest was a $300 million Series D round raised in September 2019.

Source: Crunchbase

5. The term “wordpress” receives 2.1 million global searches a month

According to keyword data from Semrush, the term “wordpress” receives 2.1 million global searches every month.

246,000 of these searches originate from India while 201,000 originate from the United States.

Source: Semrush

6. The average WordPress developer earns $54,962/year in the United States

According to job postings on Indeed, the average WordPress developer earns an annual salary of $54,962 in the United States.

This amounts to $30.47/hour.

This figure was taken from 143 job postings on Indeed.

The highest reported salary was $95,971. The lowest reported salary was $31,476.

Source: Indeed

WordPress Theme Statistics

7. There are more than 14,000 themes available in the theme directory

The official WordPress theme directory for WordPress.org contains over 14,000 free WordPress themes.

Likely not counted are premium themes available directly from developers or through marketplaces like ThemeForest and Creative Market.

Source: WordPress

Related: How to Install WordPress Themes

8. 15.6% of WordPress sites are using the Hello theme from Elementor

According to statistics collected by BuiltWith, the most popular WordPress theme is Hello.

Hello is Elementor’s proprietary theme for their page and theme builder. It’s used by 15.6% of all websites tracked by BuiltWith and has over 1 million active installations.

Here are other popular WordPress themes based on market share:

• Astra – Used by 13.64% of WordPress sites
• Divi – 9.52%
• Flatsome – 3.52%
• GeneratePress – 2.76%
• Avada – 2.49%
• OceanWP – 2.23%
• Blocksy – 1.88%
• Kadence – 1.82%

All other themes are grouped under the label “Other.” Most have a market share lower than 1%.

Source: BuiltWith

WordPress Plugin Statistics

9. There are more than 60,000 plugins available in the plugin directory

The official plugin directory for WordPress is home to over 60,000 free plugins.

Again, third-party plugins available from developer websites and marketplaces may not be included in this number.

Source: WordPress

10. WooCommerce is used by 13.93% of all ecommerce websites

According to data collected by BuiltWith, WooCommerce, the most popular ecommerce plugin available for WordPress, is used by 13.93% of all ecommerce websites in the world.

This accounts for over 3.5 million of the more than 25.2 million ecommerce websites BuiltWith tracks.

Shopify and Wix have WooCommerce beat with market shares of 27.37% and 17.82% respectively.

WooCommerce’s market share drops to 8.24%, 3.2% and 1.65% respectively among the top 1 million, top 100,000 and top 10,000 ecommerce websites on the web.

Source: BuiltWith

WordPress.org Statistics

11. 90.49% of self-hosted WordPress sites are running WordPress 6.0 or higher

According to statistics published on WordPress.org, a large majority of self-hosted WordPress sites, which are WordPress sites running WordPress.org’s version of WordPress rather than WordPress.com’s, are running WordPress 6.0 or higher.

To be more specific, 61.04% of sites are running WordPress 6.9, the current version of WordPress as of January 2026.

14.60% are running WordPress 6.8 and 4.74% are running WordPress 6.7.

Source: WordPress

12. 26.98% of WordPress sites are running PHP 8.2

According to WordPress’ own statistics, the majority of websites are running PHP 8.2, released in December 2022.

The second largest market share belongs to PHP 7.4, of which 21.72% of WordPress sites are running.

Here’s how many WordPress sites (presented as percentages) are running other versions of PHP 8.0:

• PHP 8.0 – 5.49% of WordPress sites are running this version of PHP
• PHP 8.1 – 15.07%
• PHP 8.3 – 17.65%
• PHP 8.4 – 5.29%
• PHP 8.5 – 0.40%

For context, support for PHP 8.0 was added in WordPress 5.6. PHP 8.3 became fully compatible with WordPress in WordPress 6.8.

Beta support for PHP 8.4 was added in WordPress 6.7 while beta support for PHP 8.5 was added in WordPress 6.9.

Source: WordPress (Stats), WordPress (PHP Versions)

13. 57.03% of WordPress sites are running MariaDB

According to WordPress’ statistics, the most popular database for WordPress is MariaDB. 57.03% of websites are running MariaDB.

43.01% are running MySQL.

The most popular database version among WordPress sites is MySQL 8.0 with a market share of 19.46%.

Here are other popular database versions among WordPress sites:

• MariaDB 10.6 – 15.06% of WordPress sites are using this database
• MySQL 5.7 – 14.66%
• MariaDB 10.11 – 12.86%
• MariaDB 11.8 – 12.40%
• MariaDB 11.4 – 7.73%
• MySQL 5.5 – 5.12%
• MariaDB 10.5 – 5.11%

Source: WordPress

14. 42.65% of WordPress sites are using the US-based English locale for WordPress

According to statistics from WordPress themselves, the most popular locale for WordPress is English (US) by a wide margin. 42.65% of WordPress sites use this locale.

The second most popular locale is Japanese at 5.85% followed by Spanish (Spain) at 5.79%, German at 5.54%, French (France) at 4.66%, Portuguese (Brazil) at 4.05% and English (UK) at 3.23%.

Source: WordPress

15. WordPress.org receives 9.17 million visits on a monthly basis

According to data from Similarweb, WordPress.org received 9.17 million visits in December 2025.

15.47% of that traffic came from the United States alone.

42.10% of the domain’s traffic came from organic traffic, 36.07% came from direct traffic and 20.20% came from referrals.

Source: Similarweb

WordPress.com Statistics

16. WordPress.com receives 153.3 million visits a month

WordPress.com received 153.3 million website visits in December 2025, according to Similarweb.

20.23% of the domain’s traffic originated from the United States.

Traffic distribution was made up of 57.95% organic traffic, 32.18% direct, 4.66% social and 4.29% referral.

Source: Similarweb

17. More than 409 million people view pages published on WordPress sites every month

Automattic states that over 409 million people around the world view over 20 billion pages published by WordPress.com sites on a monthly basis.

Source: WordPress

18. Around 70 million posts are published to WordPress.com sites every month

According to data published by Automattic themselves, WordPress.com users publish around 70 million posts per month on websites hosted with WordPress.com.

More than 77 million comments are published on these posts as well.

Source: WordPress

19. WordPress reached 5 billion posts in 2018

In Automattic’s post celebrating 20 years of WordPress, the company stated that WordPress reached 5 billion posts published to WordPress.com and Jetpack-connected sites in 2018.

The post also states that:

• WordPress reached 50 million posts in 2008
• WordPress.com reached over 100 blogs in September 2005 after launching in August 2005
• Automattic reached 10 employees in 2007, 100 employees in 2012 and 500 employees in 2016
• Automattic employs more than 1,400 people in over 80 countries

Source: Automattic

WordPress Security Statistics

20. 35% of security vulnerabilities in third-party themes and plugins go unresolved

The developers of Wordfence, a security plugin for WordPress, have an investigative team with strong community support that detects bugs and security vulnerabilities in third-party WordPress themes and plugins.

When the team detects a vulnerability, they disclose it to the maker of the theme or plugin.

While most developers release a patch shortly later, Wordfence claims that 35% of the vulnerabilities they disclosed in 2024 remained unresolved in 2025.

Source: Wordfence

21. 96% of security vulnerabilities originate from third-party plugins

According to Wordfence’s report, 96% of the disclosures their team makes to other developers are made for third-party plugins.

Source: Wordfence

22. 58% of security vulnerabilities originate from themes and plugins with less than 10,000 active installations

Wordfence also stated that the majority of disclosures they issued to other developers were made for themes and plugins that had fewer than 10,000 active installations.

58% of security vulnerabilities originated from software with fewer installations. 19% of vulnerabilities originated from themes or plugins with 50,000 active installations or more.

Source: Wordfence